Sweetheart Pincushions

Some British soldiers turned to embroidery during WWI and made pincushions like these to send home as touching gifts to wives, sweethearts, and mothers.

"Nancy Mambi, librarian at the Textile Center in Minneapolis, Minn., which mounted an exhibit featuring sweetheart pincushions last year, says that the tradition began in the nineteenth century with Queen Victoria. The Queen was an amateur practitioner of textile arts, who thought that soldiers might find quilting or needlepoint a great distraction while far from home."

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Via Blort